Brand Jordan

Project Type: Brand Design

Role: Creative and Strategic Direction

Deliverables: Vision & Strategy, Research, Brand Design

Introduction

I partnered with Nike’s Jordan Brand creative team to develop the brand identity for Luka Dončić’s first signature shoe. Jordan signed Luka in 2019, early in his second NBA season—already a Rookie of the Year with rising global influence. By his third year, he had exceeded every expectation, emerging as a franchise star and cultural icon. Jordan Brand recognized it was time to give him a distinct identity, setting the stage for his global signature launch in 2022.

Called “Magic” back home in Slovenia, Luka dazzles the league with his skill and imagination.

This created a pivotal opportunity: to define a signature identity that captured who Luka is—and build a platform flexible enough to grow into a global franchise.

Approach

Luka had quickly become a cornerstone of the Dallas community, and the Jordan Brand team wanted to ensure that local voices influenced the process. We scouted locations across the city and ultimately hosted a three-day design session in a space that felt authentically Jordan—elevated, but relaxed enough to encourage open creativity. Luka was fully engaged throughout, arriving without preconceived ideas and giving the team complete freedom to explore directions together.

We named the space the “Design Gym”—a nod to Luka’s reputation as a relentless gym rat and his commitment to honing his craft. To fuel creativity, we framed the sessions under the banner of the “Department of the Unimaginable,”encouraging the team to push beyond conventional ideas. We introduced new ways of thinking and making, from 3D printers that produced early shoe models to a curated mix of fabrics, materials, and textures. The goal was to create an immersive environment where the identity could emerge from experimentation—not just a logo or a single aesthetic, but a holistic expression of who Luka is.

The GOAT couldn’t attend in person, but MJ kicked things off in true Jordan fashion.

We brought together people of all ages and backgrounds for our design workshops, giving us a rich, diverse backdrop to draw from and a wide range of fresh ideas.

The Solution

We adopted a sprint-style approach, breaking participants into small groups paired with creative leads and designers who could guide rapid exploration. Each round culminated in presentation sessions where teams shared their concepts with a review panel that included Luka himself. As ideas emerged, we narrowed the field, eliminated weaker directions, and refined the strongest ones through round-robin iterations—ultimately converging on the identity that resonated most with the entire panel.

  • Teams began by exploring themes in different ways, most commonly using word clouds to surface unique qualities and attribute.

  • When it came to the logo mark, teams generated a wide range of ideas—drawing inspiration from Luka’s current team as well as meaningful elements from his homeland of Slovenia.

  • True to his competitive nature, Luka jumped in with his own creative flair—adding ideas, sketches, and insights that elevated the process.

As we narrowed the field, teams moved into bringing their marks to life—leveraging the full toolkit Nike provided, from materials to rapid visualization tools. By the end of the three-day sprint, one concept stood out. The panel—and Luka—were especially drawn to a particular solution, which the team then visualized across his upcoming signature shoe and other elements of the brand launch.

We expanded the work from those sessions into broader testing, but as Nike gathered more feedback, the response wasn’t as strong as expected. So we returned to the drawing board—using the initial mark as a foundation and refining it through multiple iterations. That process led us to a stronger, more cohesive solution that built on the best elements of the original ideas while improving clarity, distinctiveness, and long-term brand potential.

Luka was incredibly proud of the final mark. As he explained, “It’s inspired by the Möbius strip, which looks like an infinite loop from the inside to the outside. It’s a very deceptive shape—almost like two lightning bolts. It also looks like my initials, ‘LD,’ and my number, 77. And the negative space reveals an ‘S’ for Slovenia.”

Outcomes

Luka has such a big community presence in Dallas. To payback the younger participants he promised they would be the first to get his new shoes and some gear. We also went a step further to pull together some volunteers in the area and partner with Nike to revamp near by courts, celebrating the launch of his brand.

“We were thrilled with our three days in Dallas. Nike values community, and with someone like Luka, it was important that the city helped shape the process. Brian played a key role in designing the sessions and guiding the teams’ ideas. His passion and understanding of Nike and Jordan Brand were clear from start to finish.”

— Christopher Barclay, Creative Director for Jordan Brand North America